So Far, So Good...

So the deed has been done. I handed in my resignation last Monday just about managing to circumnavigate all the potential banana skins feared in my previous blog entry. And my manager seemed to take the news reasonably well. He didn't even have the decency to burst into tears or scream "You've ruined my life!!!" at the top of his voice. And there I was thinking I was a vital piece of machinery within the comapny without which it would never be able to function properly. Time to think again.

As for the rest of the week, at first it seemed as if no-one wanted to talk to me about it. But since approx Wednesday I have been fielding question after question about why, when, where, whatever. This is obviously great fun at first as everyone loves a chance to gab on about themselves and their life, but by the end of the week was getting to be a bit wearing. Though it was quite amusing to see the number of people who seemed to think I'd won a prize and kept saying 'Congratulations!'

And now, for my final three months of employment with the company, I have the lovely task of documenting 'everything I know'. What fun.

Next steps will be my first trip to Glasgow to actually view some potential new homes & hopefully meet up with my solicitor (or at least the bloke I'm assuming will be my solicitor although he doesn't know it yet). I'm planning to travel up there on Friday afternoon and return the following Wednesday. So hopefully, I can avoid the onerous documentation mountain for at least the first couple of days of the forthcoming working week by spending all day on the phone to estate agents trying to book viewings. When I leave the company in mid-June, I'm going to miss not having to pay for phone calls.

I QUIT !

Well, tomorrow's the day. The letter's written after much deliberation; who'd have thought that writing a simple letter of resignation could be so fraught with confusion? Do I say how much I've enjoyed working for the company, how sorry I am to be going, why I am leaving etc ? In the end, I just did what several guides to writing letters of resignation found online (and isn't the Internet a useful thing?) suggested: keep it short and to the point. So effectively: Dear Boss, I Quit; Leaving 15th June.

The problem is now how to break the news. Office etiquette (in my office, anyway) generally seems to demand that you take your manager aside 'for a word', making sure no-one sees you doing so, nor them twigging what you are doing when actually in the process of telling him. Normally on Mondays I arrive about 5-10 minutes before him, so I should be poised ready to strike. However, out of consideration to him, I need to wait until he's actually through the door, got his coat off and PC on and had time to get a drink. But I mustn't wait too long or he may well launch into one of his interminable conversations with his boss about the weekend's football results, which will swiftly be followed by either a phone call, a meeting or other 'proper work' by which time the office will be busier and the iron will have cooled off significantly and no longer be strikeable. So you see what a delicate tightrope I have to walk between 8.10 and 8.25 tomorrow morning.

If it all goes tits up at that time, then I shall have to fall back on Plan B - namely when we have our team bleating at 11am, send him a cryptic email 15 minutes beforehand asking if we can both remain in the meeting room for 5 minutes afterwards because I 'need to have a word about something'.

Honestly, this resignation business is worse than international espionage. It's a wonder anyone ever changes jobs.

As for everything else in The Master Plan, well hopefully I should agree a price for my flat with my neighbours this week, so should be able to put the legal wheels in motion on that shortly; and I've booked the 16-21st March off work to go up to Glasgow for my first flat-viewing weekend which I hope to combine with meeting my solicitor and a tour of Glasgow's finest veggie cafes when I get a bit peckish :)